


Enchanted

by Dedicate Kiwicrocus (cranky__crocus)



Series: SMACKDOWN '11 R2, R3, Final - CIRCLECEST [32]
Category: Emelan - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Gen, Goldenlake, smackdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-11
Updated: 2011-06-10
Packaged: 2017-10-20 07:44:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 1,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/210384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cranky__crocus/pseuds/Dedicate%20Kiwicrocus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sandry heard giggles from across the garden.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for SMACKDOWN at Goldenlake: fiefgoldenlake.proboards.com
> 
> This is a mushy-fluffy story with Circlecest!children.

            Sandry heard giggles from across the garden. The giggles sounded young—the recognisable sound of children laughing. She smiled immediately to hear it and hurried to track it to its source.

            She wouldn’t have been surprised to find Briar dazzling some youngsters (as he would call them) by growing a garden before their eyes or showcasing his ‘baby trees’ (as the children would label them). She would have been equally unsurprised to find Daja awe-inspiring the young boys with staff tricks or the young girls with living-metal designs, among other things.

            She _was_ surprised to find Tris seated at a table in the citadel’s courtroom, a gaggle of children around her. Sandry just managed to see over the children’s heads as she approached; she smiled at the picture painted there.

            A troupe of oak leaves—crunchy and fresh-fallen—danced over the table. Sandry could see the subtle spark of blue there: Tris’ magical hold over the breeze.

            “They’re enchanted,” Sandry admired when she reached the table.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'The next time I need a baby-watch, I know who to find.'

Tris smiled up at Sandry, over the bent heads of the courtier children crowded around the courtyard table. They watched the group of leaves dancing over the surface, bending and twirling as dancers would.

            “Daja and Briar weren’t here to entertain them when they flocked,” Tris explained, gesturing at the children, “so I had to think of something to distract them. It worked!”

            Sandry smiled wide and sat next to a pair of madly-gesticulating twins. She sat watching the leaves with them and basked in Tris’ pride.

            _Me, with children_ , Tris sent her through their magic. _Who would have thought?_

 _I would have though]_ , Sandry answered; she gripped Tris’ hand. _You don’t give yourself enough credit._

 _A history of crying and screaming children tends to revoke such credit_ , Tris countered. The delight in her eyes remained.

            _The next time I need a baby-watch, I know who to find,_ Sandry rebuked. She flashed a grin that was reminiscent of Daja’s.

            _Yes, you do: Daja or Briar._

Sandry’s eyebrow rose until Tris was laughing, red flushing over her cheeks.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Briar couldn’t see through the arm over his eyes.

Briar couldn’t see through the arm over his eyes. He yelped and shook his shoulders around. “Daja, call of the hounds!”

            “Raylene, I bet I can braid your hair faster than your mother,” Daja taunted from where she stood in the doorway. “What do you say of that?”

            The child flew off Briar and ran across the room, dark-blonde hair trailing her in long plaits. She clambered up Daja’s legs. “I don’t believe you.”

            “You don’t believe her?” Tris inquired from her armchair in the corner; she closed her book on her index finger and stared over her spectacles at the child. “And who do you think taught me to braid my hair?”

            “Mother!”

            “Not true. That would be Daja.”

            Raylene stared at her with wide eyes. “Did Daja teach mother, too?”

            Daja chuckled and scooped her up; Raylene set to toying with her aunt’s metallic palm. “No, Sandry learned long before she met me. Have you heard about Pirisi?”

            Raylene nodded and rested her head against Daja’s shoulder. “But I like hearing about her. Can you tell me a story while you do up my hair?”

            Briar sat back in his own chair and laughed. “Let’s tell her about Rosethorn.”

            They all chuckled at Raylene’s responding gasp.

            “Or Lark,” Daja soothed, shooting Briar a look that said _Behave!_


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "What’s that strange stuff on the metal?"

 “Daja?” a young voice asked from her elbow. She turned to stare down at shaggy black hair and keen dark-green eyes.

            “Yes, Rosemary?”

            “Rose,” the little tomboyish girl corrected. She pointed at the metal piece outside the Cheeseman House. “What’s that strange stuff on the metal? Papa tells me it shouldn’t be there.”

            “Briar’s a little right—it’s natural, but smiths prefer not to see it. It’s rust: when iron spends too much time outside with water. It weakens the metal,” Daja explained as she scraped some off the slab and showed it to Rose up close. “It often turns red.”

            Rose nodded her head as she took this in. The curious look had not left her features. “Is that why Tris and Sandry screamed when they saw it in the water?”

            “They saw it in the…?” Daja frowned and sighed. “Lead the way, Rose.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Why are you avoiding my question?”

 “AH!” Sandry gasped as she pulled the curtain back on their bathing basin. “Jowan, what are you doing in the bath?”

            He held a book up at eye level, hiding all but his auburn hair. Sandry pushed the book down to catch a glimpse of his peevish blue eyes.

            “I’m _reading_ ,” he clarified. “Or I _was_.”

            “That’s not the part I question,” Sandry replied without missing a beat. “My question concerns why you are doing it in the _bath_.”

            “Why are you taking a bath here, when there are possibly hundreds available for you at the citadel?” he fired back, eyebrows rising.

            “Why are you avoiding my question?”

            “Why are you avoiding mine?”

            They locked eyes. One of Sandry’s eyebrows raised; Jowan was stuck with both, for he hadn’t mastered the eyebrow trick yet. He’d learn soon enough, with Tris as a mother. Still, he knew he couldn’t out-stubborn Sandry: he had once over-heard his mother compare her to a mule. Unflattering, he thought, to the future Duchess of Emelan, but quite possibly true.

            “Briar has some frilly woman in the study, Tris is cleaning the lounge and Daja has forbidden me from the kitchen since I accidentally froze her lunch.”

            Jowan had expected many things at his answer: scolding, further eyebrow-raising, being bodily pulled from the basin by his ear and a number of other options.

            He did not expect Sandry to laugh hard enough to nearly hit her forehead on the edge of the bath.

            “It isn’t _funny_ ,” he insisted.

            His forehead creased at the resulting ‘thwang’. Sandry’s head had hit the bath. Her skull had to be _dense!_


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “How did you guess?”

Briar could feel eyes on him; it was a skill—an imperative, inborn skill—of those who were born in and survived the streets. He could feel this gaze was not malicious. He also had a guess as to the owner.

            “Nyarai?”

            “How did you guess?” she called down. He heard feet landing hard against soft ground.

            “It’s an old skill,” he answered. “And the others don’t climb as well as you.”

            She gave a soft smile out of pride; he caught it in his peripheral. She sat beside him on his bench. “Daja, Sandry and Tris don’t notice the way you do.”

            Briar turned. “You call your mother Daja?”

            “She calls me Nya, my name, it only seems fair,” the girl responded. Her skin was only softly coloured and her hair was a fine brown, but she had some of her mother’s—one of her mother’s, in her case—mannerisms. “I respect Daja and Eulia.” She looked at him squarely, eyebrows drawing together some. At last she smiled. “You had two mothers as well: wasn’t it easier with two separate names respectfully used, than two titles?”

            Briar laughed. “You’re somethin’ else, I’ll give you that.”

            “Tris told me the same. She wants me to start reading thick books. How did she get _you_ to do that?”

            “She had to teach me to read first.”

            “Wow.” Nya sat forward, head on her table-propped hands. “You all were close.”

            Briar grinned. “But we bickered as much as you lot did.”

            When the girl grinned, it was all Daja. “Can you teach me to sense the way you do?”

            “I can try.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! C: Hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
